After Election Day, America went to bed — four times — and still the Sunshine State hadn't declared official results.

Days later, we were still counting, despite presidential challenger Mitt Romney conceding. And while Florida once again held up the nation's final election tally, the nation held Florida in ridicule, wondering why we can't get our election act together.

"If this election contest relied on the outcome of Florida for the presidency, every single eye in this nation would be turned toward Florida, and not with affection and love," said Lee Rowland, of the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan public policy and law institute based at New York University. "Because the presidential election was decided without Florida, I'm concerned folks will walk away thinking everything worked out all right, and it didn't."

In the Sunshine State's latest election mess, the reason wasn't offbeat ballot design or the confusion of thousands of elderly South Floridians, like in 2000. The top causes for Florida being the last of the 50 states to count its votes in 2012 were a long ballot and changes ordered by the Legislature that swamped elections officials with time-consuming provisional and absentee ballots, experts said.

The big turnout meant more ballots to count. The especially long ballot meant more pages to scan. And a shortened early-voting window resulted in more absentee ballots, which require more time and scrutiny by elections officials before they can be counted.

Incoming Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford told a Tallahassee radio host Friday that the Legislature will be looking at the causes of the fiasco, and that he and his fellow lawmakers might be responsible.

"When you turn on the TV and every state is red or blue, and there's one yellow one and it's down here and it's us, we should all be a little bit embarrassed by that," the Tampa-area Republican said. "I'm not going to blame anybody. Who knows, maybe it's the Legislature's fault. Maybe we have been too ambiguous in the laws that we have passed."

While the networks ripped and poked at Florida for remaining uncommitted long after Obama's victory speech early Wednesday, the jabs flew on Twitter.

"Come on Florida; 'The Golden Girls' can count those ballots quicker," wrote one wag.

Broward's Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes defended her office's efforts, saying all legal deadlines for vote tabulation had been respected, and by the state's reporting deadline of noon Saturday, she was able to provide a complete and accurate count of all votes cast, including results of early voting, Election Day, absentee and provisional ballots.

"I'm not embarrassed; my staff is not embarrassed," Snipes said. "If we were doing something wrong and different, then yeah, we would be embarrassed. But we're doing the same thing we always do. Because it's a presidential election and it's close, everybody wants it right now."

Rowland said Florida's 2012 election-count debacle had less to do with local officials like Snipes and more to do with the state's lawmakers.

"The first and perhaps saddest answer is that the Florida Legislature decided to make it a priority in 2011 to reduce access to voter registration and voting," she said.

Not only did Florida legislators cut back the number of early voting days from 14 to eight, Rowland said, but they ensured there would be more time-consuming provisional ballots to tally. Voters who had moved from one county to another since they last voted were required to use a provisional ballot.

Provisional ballots are cast at polling places by people who can't provide adequate identification or who have problems proving their home address or registration. Before they can be counted, election officials must verify the voter's eligibility.

The Republican-led Legislature also undid a long-standing law that permitted voters who had changed their home address to cast ordinary ballots after affirming their new address under oath.

"When you put all of that together, that is a recipe for a drawn-out election process," Rowland said.

Deirdre Macnab, of the League of Women Voters of Florida, seconded that view, saying elections supervisors were thrown too many "curve balls" that created confusion and fouled up Florida's election process once again.

"Our supervisors were trying their very best," she said. "But when they are constantly being thrown curve balls by the Legislature and secretary of state … I think that creates an instability in our system that is unhealthy, and that's when problems surface."

Broward County doesn't keep count of how many provisional ballots are received, lumping them in with the absentees. An estimated 3,500 provisional ballots came in this year.

Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner defended the state's election procedures, blaming many of this year's problems on having too few early-voting sites, but promised improvements will be made.